First previewed at this year’s drupa, the C6000 is the second release from the company’s imagePRESS product line after the release of the C7000VP last year.

Tony Wills, general manager of Canon Australia’s Business Imaging Solutions Group, has also said a “tidal wave of products and services” will be released in the next two years. While he wouldn’t be drawn on the specifics, he did say that roughly “half a dozen” products were slated for release.

The C6000 is the entry-level equivalent of the 7000, with a duty cycle of 50,000 to 150,000 impressions per month, roughly half that of the 7000. The 6000 produces 60 A4 pages per minute in full colour.

As well as being a cheaper alternative to the 7000, the 6000 also requires only a single-phase power inlet, as opposed to the 7000’s three-phase power requirement. The two models do, however, run on the same engine, with Canon even claiming that certain accessories can be swapped between the two.

With some five years’ worth of R&D going into the C7000, Wills admits that Canon “went into hibernation a bit” and “lost some ground” on rivals such as Xerox and Konica Minolta, with the release of the C7000 being delayed some two years. Despite the C5000 series “outstaying its welcome” somewhat whilst the 7000 was being perfected, Wills claimed that the time was worth it to ensure the 7000 was fully ready for the market.

With the 7000 having sold 30 units in Australia so far, Wills has declared that the angst surrounding its delay “is all history now”.

The emergence of its imagePRESS line represents a push by Canon to regain the ground it has lost in the digital market, with the company also showing off a new Production Print Centre in its Sydney headquarters, where it will showcase and test its latest products as well as training customers and employees.

“We have spared no expense in what will essentially be a new business for Canon,” said Wills.

Wills has gone so far as to describe the amount of funds devoted to the print production aspect of the business as “disproportionate”, pointing to the fact that Canon is second only to IBM in the number of patents registered each year as an example of its devotion to R&D.

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